Li YH, et al. - In this retrospective cohort study, researchers examined the impacts of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) on mortality in type 2 diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria. In type 2 diabetic inpatients with normoalbuminuria, DR was an independent predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Findings revealed that patients with CKD and DR demonstrated the highest mortality rate. In patients with type 2 diabetes, funduscopy screening can provide additive information on mortality even among those with normoalbuminuric chronic kidney disease (NA-CKD).

Methods

• Clinical information was collected from the medical records of a public medical center in central Taiwan.
• For this investigation, patients with type 2 diabetes (n=665) who were hospitalized due to poor glucose control were consecutively enlisted and followed for a median of 6.7 years (IQR 4.1–9.6 years).
• Exclusion criteria included patients with either urinary protein excretion > 150 mg/day or urine albumin excretion > 30 mg/day.
• All-cause mortality served as the primary follow-up outcome.
• Researchers obtained the mortality data from the national registry in Taiwan.

Results

• According to the findings, highest mortality rate (log-rank p<0.001) was exhibited by patients with CKD and DR.
• After adjusting for the associated risk factors, the risks of all-cause mortality (HR 2.263; 95% CI 1.551 to 3.302) and cardiovascular mortality (HR 2.471; 95% CI 1.421 to 4.297) were significantly greater in patients with CKD and DR than in those without CKD or DR.